Christina Thomas takes the stand to deny abuse allegations

DOVER — After her 14-year-old son took the stand and had broken down crying during his testimony, defendant Christina Thomas took the stand and swore under oath she did not starve the now 9-year-old victim in this alleged child abuse case.

DOVER — After her 14-year-old son took the stand and had broken down crying during his testimony, defendant Christina Thomas took the stand and swore under oath she did not starve the now 9-year-old victim in this alleged child abuse case.

“Whether you want to, or anyone else wants to believe that, I was doing everything I could for (the boy)," she insisted.

After more than four hours on the stand, under questioning from both her defense attorney, Steven Keable, and Deputy Strafford County Attorney Alysia Cassotis, Thomas stepped down teary-eyed, having just said she cared deeply for the victim and his biological mother.

Thursday marked the 11th day of Thomas' trial in Stafford County Superior Court in Dover. Thomas, 34, is charged with first degree assault for allegedly starving the son of her friend from 2006 to 2010 in her New Durham home. The boy was about 23 pounds when he was removed from the home a few months before his seventh birthday.

Keable asked the woman if the portrait the state's witnesses had painted of her throughout the last three weeks was accurate. She responded she is “not that person”. She also said she never enslaved the boy's mother and she never used physical force on her children or the victim.

The state was unable to call the defendant's 10-year-old son to the stand, after Thomas informed the court he was out of state, in Jamaica Plain, Mass. The state said because the witness was unavailable, they would request a previous statement made by the boy in an interview with the state Division of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF). Judge John M. Lewis accepted the motion, informing Thomas her decision to have the child out of state Thursday could lead to criminal charges for interfering with the case.

In the statement, it was revealed Thomas's child, at the age of 6, told investigators, who questioned him at the New Durham School, his mother would sometimes use a paddle and a spatula to spank all her six children as well as the victim. Thomas refuted the claims, stating she is “not that close” with her son and she has never used corporal punishment on her children in her opinion, though she said she spanked them from time to time with her hand.

Thomas testified also the boy's mother placed the victim in this case, now 9 years old, in a snow bank as punishment and also called her own son racial slurs. It has been alleged that Thomas, as well as her mother, Peg Starr, of New Durham, carried out those acts. Thomas said she never used epithets against the boy, though she admitted on one occasion she became angry and swore at the boy for eating chicken feces in the yard of her home. That's when a chain link kennel was placed outside, she said.

At one point, Cassotis asked Thomas to remove her chewing gum when she testified, as some jurors complained it was hard to hear her.

Cassotis also asked Thomas about an event earlier in the day, when an employee in the Strafford County attorney's office reported she overheard the defendant on the phone yelling at Kevin Tulley, a man listed as a possible witness in the case. Tulley is a man Thomas described as her verbally abusive ex-boyfriend, who still lives in the home with her husband, who is also the father of two of her six children.

Cassotis informed Thomas it is against the law for her to discuss the case with anyone during the trial. Thomas said she did tell Tulley to return to the court to testify, or there would be consequences. She refuted Cassotis' claims that she said she would not allow the man to her children ever again, as the employee reported.

It was also brought to the court's attention that another county attorney employee overheard Thomas the day before informing her friend, Holly Kibuchi, how to testify in the court bathroom on the second floor. The bathroom is just across the hall from the courtroom.

Thomas and her friend both denied they were discussing the case at that time.

The trial began at 10 a.m. Thursday and concluded at about 5:15 p.m. Judge Lewis thanked the jury for being patient, stating “it is hard work,” and said the trial would resume early Friday morning.